The present invention generally relates to service request devices and service request reception devices. The present invention also relates to utilizing a service request device to prompt a response from a service performer wearing, holding, or watching a service request reception device. Furthermore, the present invention also relates to improving operational efficiency of an organization by intelligently understanding and managing interactions between a service requester that uses a service request device and a service performer that uses a service request reception device.
Service-oriented and in-person business operations often deploy service request devices to enable a customer to gain attention from a service performer. For example, a classical and conventional form of a service request device is a physical bell placed on a table in a restaurant, on a hotel check-in counter, or on a front counter of a store. When a customer rings the physical bell, the sound of the physical bell alerts a service performer, such as a restaurant worker, a hotel staff member, or a store clerk to be physically present in front of the customer to fulfill a service request. In recent years, electronic service request devices (e.g. electronic service request bells, one-way or two-way pagers, and etc.) are widely deployed in business operations to prompt a service performer via a service request reception device that a service is being requested at a particular location. In many cases, an electronic service request device has a unique device identification number or code that is correlated to a table number, a counter number, or another location-identifying information easily understood by a service performer. These electronic devices can also be utilized in industrial and manufacturing operations. For example, a factory worker can press a bell button from a service request device to prompt attention from a supervisor or a support staff, if there is a problem or an issue in an assembly-line operation.
Unfortunately, these electronic forms of service requests and paging do not necessarily yield faster or efficient response time from a service performer. For example, an unmotivated service performer may intentionally ignore a bell press from a service request device. More damagingly, the unmotivated service performer may persistently ignore or neglect service requests from a multiple number of service request devices used by customers or employees, thereby causing a serious bottleneck or weakness in operational efficiency of a business organization that utilizes electronic service request bells and/or pagers. Furthermore, the unmotivated service performer may exhibit persistently-delayed or sporadic responses to various service requests from customers or other individuals, thereby causing significant operational delays and inefficiencies. Supervising entities or operational quality control staff members presently do not have effective methods or apparatuses to identify and determine a poorly-behaving service performer that ignores service requests or delays service fulfillments.
Therefore, it may be beneficial to devise a novel electronic alert system that identifies and determines a poorly-behaving service performer that exhibits chronically-problematic responses to service requests by customers or other individuals. Furthermore, it may also be beneficial to devise the novel electronic alert system to report the identified, poorly-behaving service performer to a supervising entity or to an operational quality control staff. Moreover, it may also be beneficial to devise the novel electronic alert system to utilize cloud-computing resources available on the Internet for seamless portability, upgrades, and operation with installed base of electronic service request and reception devices. In addition, it may also be beneficial to devise a method for operating this novel electronic alert system.